To Kill a Mockingbird pulled from reading list

A Mississippi school district recently decided to remove Harper Lee's classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, from its eighth-grade reading list after receiving complaints that the book's language made people "uncomfortable."

For those who need a refresher:

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction the next year. It follows a series of events loosely based on Lee's own experiences growing up in Monroeville, Alabama, in the 1930s, and speaks to themes of racial inequality and discrimination in a small Southern town. The story includes instances of the "N-word" in reflection of the language used at the time, and is listed as the No. 21 most banned books in the last decade by the American Library Association.

As the article continues, "the book will still be available for students to check out in school libraries, but will no longer be used as the core text for eighth-grade ELA, the Common Core state standards for English Language Arts:"

The decision came as an administrative and department decision, a member of the school board told the Herald, and was not voted upon by the school board.